Like everyone else, we love hoppy beers, especially when fresh and local! We have five young pales from area breweries while playing our newest game, Hop Bingo. (Play along at home by downloading the card from our website!) Craig talks about his CHAOS Homebrew event experience, Ryan tries to make “Chic-hop-go” happen (It’s not going to happen!), and we both talk comic book/beer pairings. We are floating in the most peculiar way.

The current demand for “session” IPAs is high, and breweries are practically tripping over themselves to release their version of the hoppy longdrinker. We make our way through nine beers under the 5% ABV cap from nine different breweries, tasting each blindly - without the benefit of knowing the brewery of origin. There are many surprise reveals and revelations, our most interesting smell descriptors yet, and a rousing edition of Ryan’s new favorite game, “Jam Band or Flim Flam?” Also, Craig would like to remind you that we’re not cicerones. No kidding.

Some of Chicago’s best new breweries don’t bottle yet, so we went to five of them and brought back growlers! Marie Cummins joins us from the Down the Hatch beer blog and Chicago Craft Beer Enthusiasts. She comes through with much-needed food-pairing help, recaps her Kegs for Kidneys experience, talks about her favorite Chicago brewery, and explains why she’s so popular in the Ukraine. Craig and Ryan just try not to sound stupid. Someone’s gonna get punched in the stomach!

It’s a frenzy of 4 Hands beers as we tackle eight unique offerings from the St. Louis-based brewery. We have our first threeway (of beer) and we try not to make eye contact. We talk a little Pipeworks (of course), Craig rants about the Esquire network, and Ryan speaks ill about the sacred cow that is The Barenaked Ladies. We also drink lots of delicious beers. Let’s get handsy.